[Aztlan] squash

[Diehl, Richard]

I would like to return to Nick's post on squash for a moment. It apparently was the very first plant domesticated in Mesoamerica (10,00-8,000 calendar years ago in Guila Naquitz cave, Oaxaca, according to Bruce Smith) and is often referred to as one the Mesoamerican triumvirate of food plants. However, I question how important it really was in the diet. The flesh is delicious but I am not aware of any way to preserve it for use throughout the year. The seeds are highly nutritious and can be stored. In fact some 50,000 of them were found in an Archaic period cache at Russell Cave, Alabama. Nevertheless, even those 50,000 were then stored for years in a cigar box at Smithsonian. That is not a whole lot of food! I seriously doubt that squashes were as important to the average Mesoamerican family as they are to modern archaeologists and ethnobotanists.  Certainly a welcome addition to what might have been rather monotonous daily fare but not a major component in the diet. In fact, I suspect that maguey products such as agua miel and pulque were much more important day in and day out for the residents of highland Mexico and that many other plants (including fruits, manioc and other tubers) were more important in the lowlands. I'll be happy if someone can show me that I'm wrong.
 
Saludos,
Dick Diehl